I don’t want money. I don’t want clothes. I’ll even give up that iPhone I had my eye on. All if this ridiculous crowing from the far left is ignored.

And it’s not just me.

The latest broadside to the “kill the bill/single payer/public option” noise parade comes from Jonathan Chait. Basically, his article reads as such, “Progressives, don’t you realize what just happened? You don’t? Well, wise up dummies.”From TNR:

The opponents of the bill are full of passionate intensity. The right, of course, is subsumed in rage and paranoia. Conservatives have been joined by fiery liberals like Howard Dean and a slew of left-wing blogs, denouncing the bill as a corporate giveaway and urging its defeat. The attitude closer to the center is more resignation and disappointment. (Frank Rich again: “Though the American left and right don’t agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger [Woods]’s public image.”) The endorsements invariably have a defensive tone—the bill “has some imperfections but is worthy of support,” concludes a New York Times editorial.

At some level, it is possible to understand the roots of liberal frustration. The machinery of Congress has ground away at the health care bill, as it does to almost any bill. But at a broader level, the liberal mood is insane. What has emerged from that machinery is not merely “better than nothing” or “a good start.” It is the most significant American legislative triumph in at least four decades. Why can so few people see that?

Why?

Because it’s easier to dream about the public option being passed through reconciliation, even though it’s likely that was never even procedurally possible. It’s satisfying to think about Dems forcing Republicans to filibuster, even though some moderate Dems and Lieberman were likely to have joined them.

Yes, single payer and the public option may seem better since so many other countries have variations on those themes, but these plans also have problems. Progressives ignore these realities or try to explain them away at every turn.

But don’t listen to me. If you want a reason to support what’s about to pass…look no further than the architect of the public option, who endorses the current legislation.

Chait sums it up…

The New Left rejection of “corporate liberalism” came at what we now regard as the historical apex of American liberalism. At the moment of another historical triumph, liberals are retreating from politics into languor, rage, and other incarnations of anti-politics. One day they may look back upon this time with longing.

Progressives™ – Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory so you don’t have to.

I have to admit that I don’t much care what their motives are, but I’m glad that they’re trying to kill this misbegotten legislation anyway. Even if we could be comfortable with its broad outlines and premises (which we should not), no one reading this has read the Senate bill; the unseemly haste with which this legislation has been rammed through is incompatible with the level of deliberation required for so large, complex, and critical a reform, and is reason by itself to kill the bill. Congress spends more time considering whether or not to rename a post office than it has spent considering this bill.

Strange allies, to be sure. In these circumstances, however, we can’t afford to be purist: we must be willing to compromise. If the left hates this bill and wants to kill it, we should all be willing to embrace them as unlikely allies in killing it, no matter that once it’s dead, we shall be enemies again.

Is their position self-defeating, as Chait seems to believe? Gosh, I hope so.

Unseemly haste? I feel like this thing has dragged on since I had hair.

If conservatives gave a rat’s behind about health care they had a very, very long time and plenty of opportunities to do something about it. But of course conservatives don’t care. They don’t care about the uninsured, they don’t care about medical bankruptcies, they don’t care about much of anything but tax cuts for wealthy people and bashing gays. And of course they care about defeating Obama and feeding the hysteria of the Palinites.

Pass the bill. Then we’ll fix it. It’s the way it’s been done since time immemorial. Ignore conservatives: they have nothing to add, nothing to say, nothing.

Yes, Michael, unseemly haste. The general outlines have been in circulation for barely a year or two, and the specific text voted on yesterday was cobbled together by Harry Reid less than a week ago.

This is a far-reaching reform of a huge and critical sector of the economy and the Democrats have thrown something together at the last minute and crossed their fingers. It’s staggering how they can behave so irresponsibly. Congress spent years putting together the details of ERISA, a far more modest reform, but you guys think you can throw a firework in a paint can in Harry Reid’s office on Saturday, stamp the senate’s approval on it five days later, and unfurl the “mission accomplished” banner. The total indifference to the content of the bill is astonishing. Say what you like about Jane Hamsher, but next to the Senate Democrats, she’s a model citizen: she at least CARES what is in the bill. Meanwhile the Senate Democrats are like my 16 year old: you tell him to do his math homework and he’ll just do five problems, regardless of whether they’re actually the assigned problems. Because, after all, what matters is that he did work, not the content of it. Super: We have a bunch of 16 year olds trying to reform healthcare. I feel safe. When Jane Hamsher is acting smarter than you, you’re acting pretty dumb.

And what’s hilarious is that for all your bluster about how it’s conservatives who don’t care about Tom, Dick, or Harry and their healthcare, your cavalier “throw the china on the floor and we’ll pick up the pieces later” attitude is by far the action most likely to cause chaos and suffering.

This has long since stopped being about health care reform and is a purely a matter of saving political face. The bill will certainly help many Americans, but the question is at what cost. To Congress that doesn’t matter. The Republicans are trying to stall anything going forward to damage the President (like a couple of months to study the bill would make them change their mind) and the Dems want to pass just about anything this this doesn’t drag far into next year where mid term elections will prevent anything major from going forward.

This is why Obama will never be reelected. He continues to piss everyone off. Left center and right. The Dems will spin this and that is why they are very seriously in danger of losing a ton of seats in the 2010 election.

Is the GOP lost? You tell me. Obama gives an interview to 60 minutes a week ago where he rails against the bonuses given to wall street types and then this…….

But even as the administration was making this open-ended financial commitment, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disclosed that they had received approval from their federal regulator to pay $42 million in Wall Street-style compensation packages to 12 top executives for 2009.

The compensation packages, including up to $6 million each to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s chief executives, come amid an ongoing public debate about lavish payments to executives at banks and other financial firms that have received taxpayer aid. But while many firms on Wall Street have repaid the assistance, there is no prospect that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will do so. ….

Health care is only a part of the democrats worries. AS more and more of this bill becomes known leading up to the 2010 elections and the taxes kick in trust me….The democrats are going to pay a heavy price for their tyrannical rule which they projected onto the Bush administration for years. Now we find out they were simply envious…not angry.

The fact that it is almost entirely white, increasingly southern, old and rural; the fact that GOP intellectual leaders like Limbaugh and Beck are constantly caught race-baiting; the fact that GOP officials are caught circulating overtly racist emails; the fact that tea-baggers love to carry signs picturing Obama with a witch doctor or an ape; the fact that for the very first time in history a substantial portion of the GOP insists the president is not actually an American at all: coincidence.

Nothing but an amaaaaazing coincidence.

Just as Nixon’s southern strategy was a myth promulgated I’m willing to bet by, er, “urban” and “internationalist” and “liberal” historians.

Interesting that I just had this conversation with a strong conservative at another blog. He, too, denied racism. But he allowed that:

There is indeed a race component to the opposition to Obama, but it isn’t a simple color issue at all. It is an issue born of a virulent black culture that hates America, and wishes to wreck its revenge on the white majority–think Reverend White–and Obama is its titular leader. To support this ideology is to support the downfall of white America.

But of course that wouldn’t strike you as a racist comment, would it? “Virulent black culture.” You don’t have a problem with that, do you, MW? Because there is no racism in the GOP. Nope.

Of course I never said anything at all about ALL Republicans. You’re coming in late to an ongoing conversation, unaware of what’s been said previously.

But, in any case, disliking Republicans is not bigotry, it’s an ideological difference rather than race, religion, etc, the usual bases of a charge of bigotry. If you say for example that you despise all communists that does not make you a bigot, whereas saying that you despise all Jews, does.

Would you object that a person who despises all communists or all Nazis or all Khmer Rouge is a bigot? Do you see the problem there?

Actually, it is bigotry because that’s a subjective definition. True, it’s not bigotry in the traditional sense (racial, religious, etc.), but Doomed’s use of the term is correct…if one considers you to be completely irrational.

Personally, I don’t think you’re irrational, so I don’t think you’re a bigot. Of course, I do know you’re itching for a fight. But that’s just playful. :-)

However, your last bit, the comparisons of the GOP to Nazis and the Khmer Rouge…hmm…there was a better parallel to be drawn.

Doomed,

First off, I’ll never ban you for calling somebody’s post retarded, but you could have summed up your opinion better than that.

Also, I think you’re taking a particularly unkind view of Michael’s points. First and foremost, he says “racism in the GOP” not “the GOP is racist.” That’s a pretty important distinction. Also, the examples he points out are all factual and all valid. Republicans have traded in the politics of racial division for decades and that fact has been documented countless times. And his example from that blog can be duplicated a million times over by similar blog comments, entries, etc. In short, it’s not just one post.

Now, do I think a lot of Republican politicians are racist? No. I think they see an opportunity and take it because they want to retain power. That makes them craven, but not racist. Most of them are actually very principled and much too smart to actually be racist in the true sense of the word. So in that regard, Michael and I disagree.

You still believe the GOP is the GOP you and I grew up with in our respective generations. It’s not. The GOP is Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and Palin and the teabaggers. Name a rational Republican who holds more sway within the GOP than Beck or Palin.

The premise of this blog is that both parties are capable of rational discourse. It’s a flawed premise. There are certainly individual Republicans who are capable of that, but they are minor voices within the big parade o’ crazy.

The test of the proposition is very simple: name the top ten powers within the GOP. And now show me which of those is interested in rational discourse on the issues of the day.

The notion that the bill has been put together with “unseemly haste” is compelling to me. Against an absolute scale, it’s a huge thing that was put together far quicker than any such complex overarching reform effort deserves. Cheeerfully agreed.

Yet I know that politics is the art of the possible. And it’s simply not possible in our 21st century environment for congress to slowly and quietly and carefully undertake such a giant reform on an ongoing good faith basis. The world is now way too fast and there are too many moving parts and people. I’m uninterested in waiting for an ideal approach that’s not going to come. It’s ponies and rainbows.

So, while I agree that what we have now is quite imperfect for reasons which include haste, I guess in the end I don’t agree that the haste is in fact unseemly. Not in the real world context of modern American politics. Ideally, I am a person who will vehemently oppose any imposed choice with a subjectively chosen deadline. But in this case, I think that the window is closing for obvious political reasons. Realistically, the choice really is between what we have now, and nothing. Because we won’t get another such chance at reform until the next cresting tide of one wing or the other. And that next tide will be subject to the same time constraints as the Obama liberal tide has been. The crest is past, and this is the one big first term reform that every crest gets. It gets one, usually. That’s about it.

So I support passage of this legislation primarily because it extends health care access to many poor people under non-emergency circumstances, and because it limits recision. Make no mistake, I have serious reservations, especially about the costs, and those things will need to be faced seriously over the next 3 to 5 to 10 years, because our federal budgetary circumstances are undeniably dire.

Let me just close by saying how little respect I have for the unrealistic whining of progressives. They need to study the math of democratic politics, majorities, and American demographics, and face the astonishingly obvious fact that 21st century American politics really is just as I said, the art of the possible.

It’s fine to passionately believe that it would be much nicer if this, that, or the other stronger, bolder, more fundamental reform wold me a much greater improvement for our nation. As long as your next thought is “oh well.”

Here’s the thing. American politics can achieve only incremental reforms because as a nation we can only remodel our house while we continue to live in it and keep our lives going in a recognizable way. We can’t all go live in a hotel and demolish big parts of our world and reconstruct them from the ground up.

Such things can happen in complex modern societies only under revolutionary circumstances. And revolutionary circumstances are invariably destructive of ongoing everyday lives and the tapestry that they weave to form a civil life. That’s just the way it is. Any legitimate revolution requires the sacrifice of an entire generation. Most Americans are not interested in that. Folks ought to either accept that, or grab a gun and see how far they can get. Which is not very far.

When someone invokes Nazi in a post about the GOP how do you not conclude they are racists and bigoted. By his own admission its okay to hate Nazis. Therefore if you can make the case the GOP are Nazis then…..

Voilla….its okay to hate the GOP.

Bigotry at its finest because he is using props and culture groups to do so.

Believe it or not the South is a cultural group. Old Men…yep. Whites….that too.

Southern is a region of the USA. If your rural your most likely GOP and that makes you a racist too.

Not said….but certainly implied.

Everything about his example oozes the bigotry that the left tries to paint the right with while defending themselves against such outrageous tags with indignation of galactic proportions.

1- Hysteria. (Condemn it out of hand using the wildest rhetoric they can come up with.)

The premise of this blog is that both parties are capable of rational discourse.

I don’t agree AT ALL that this is the blog’s premise. I think the premise is that rational discourse is a virtue all by itself and that we should try to practice it in good faith to the best of our abilities. That leads me to the implicit additional premise that the thoughts and behaviors of any particular partisan @sshole from either wing are not relevant to the type of discussion we want to have.

That Beck or Palin are conceivably moronic @ssholes really has no bearing on any discussion of the merits of a given policy reform.

The test of the proposition is very simple: name the top ten powers within the GOP. And now show me which of those is interested in rational discourse on the issues of the day.

I continue to find this a deeply uninteresting test to try and keep taking. If we stick to and model rational discourse, that’s really the best that we can do to support the emergence of rational sensible leaders on both sides. I think that there are rational sensible conservatives, and that they are right now letting the Becks and Palins blow themselves out. If necessary this could, in the worst case scenario, go as far the 2012 presidential nomination of a hardcore populist conservative figure. Who I firmly believe would get pounded like a tent stake even by a beleagured sitting President Obama. A Palin-type figure would inevitably remind most Americans of all the very good reasons why they voted for Obama the first time.

In the meantime, I am quite happy to speak rationally with whichever sensible conservatives choose to stop by, and to aggressively chase off drive-by kooks. One thing I will continue to do my best to do is to complain loudly whenever the discussion devolves into

My side is better than you side because __(insert list of kooks on your side)___.

That’s a pointless, useless approach which invariably leads the blog AWAY from the premise that rational discourse is a virtue, and that mindless partisan defenses are the problem.

I was pointing out the logical fallacy in defining bigotry as opposition to a particular ideology. I used the Nazis, Khmer Rouge and Communists as exemplars of ideologies we all oppose without being thought bigoted.

It would be great if we could have debates that don’t rely on people deliberately distorting what’s said or meant, as both you and Justin did in that case.

I think this bill fails to do what is even remotely needed, which is make health care AFFORDABLE. It’s irrelevant if the 15% of people who didn’t have insurance now do, if it becomes too expensive for everyone. It’s not even a bandaid fix.

“Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten states, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy.”

–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1868

No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and that even carefully guarded.”

–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1880

We are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who can not be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers.”

–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1908

Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when–and only when–brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy–it ought to be sufficient to convince even the blacks themselves.”

–William Jennings Bryan, 1923
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1896, 1900 and 1908
Appointed Secretary of State by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

–Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957

I’m not going to use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that’s made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods.”

Racism in the US started with the all so pure Democratic party and is not contained within the confines of the GOP.

Today the GOP suffers from the infusion of Democrats who have shed themselves of their old Racist party and have joined the GOP which was actually the party that freed the slaves and worked hard for decades for racial equality.

It was basically during the 60′s as you can see by LBJ’s verbage that the racist democrats actually defected to the GOP and brought with them their racist attitudes.

Is the GOP filled with racists? I dont know about filled but their are certainly racists in the GOP who garnered their roots from the Democratic party.

Remember Strom Thurman? He was nominated to run for president in 1948 as a DIXIECRAT because the Democratic party was not Racist enough for him. Later switching to the GOP.

When you spend some time studying history you will recall something like this being said by the champion of the Blacks.

I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes.”

–Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

and lets not forget the famous words of Joe Biden.

“You cannot go into a Dunkin’ Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

To claim that the GOP is filled with racist ignores the roots of where this racism came from.

Of course racism exists. Of course it is a factor. Of course racism is present in some of the opposition to Obama. The unsubstantiated logical leap occurs with the implication that it is a primary or driving force in the opposition to Obama policies.

Racism is a very serious charge to level at anyone… No one is well served by those who find it under every Obama opposition rock. Net net – it is there, it is real, but you sure don’t need to invoke racism to explain the opposition to this president’s policies. The difference between Obama’s January numbers and now, is a whole lot of bad administration policy.

It seems to me that whenever and wherever this argument is initiated, those initiating it do so in order to de-legitimize Obama’s opposition in its entirety and stop the policy conversation. Opponents are not portrayed as being influenced by a racial agenda, but as being controlled by it. The entire purpose is to deny them the sanction of reason so that their arguments may be ignored.

And that is garbage. Pure, unadulterated swill. If opposition to the policies of the President is going to be categorized in racial terms, then no national discussion is possible; there can be no negotiation with a fundamentally irrational opponent.

MR is not interested in rational argument. He is interested in using the accusation of racism in order to ignore them. He is quite explicit that this is his intention.

Doomed, you do realize that the democrats were called “southern democrats” back before the civil rights era right? They were the conservative party, and the republicans “the party of lincoln” were the liberals. Just making sure, cause either you’re completely retarded or a worthless liar.

We are talking about Democrats and Republicans. Not liberals and Conservatives. Your now trying to bait and switch the entire debate by changing the language to suit your needs and then calling me retarded for something I did not say, imply or even discuss.

This discussion is about labels, labeling and bigotry. However lets look for a second at what I did in fact post.

LBJ calling Negroes uppity.

Bobby Kennedy inferring he doesnt care much for them.

Joe Biden bad mouthing Indians.

Jimmy Carter speaking to ethnic purity.

Of course all of these were conservatives. I should have realized that about LBJ and Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. Wow silly me.

But all that aside. WE are flinging around labels. So democrats were and ARE bigots and racists and are no better then the GOP.

Which brings me to the point of this entire exercise. Using the race card as if the same racial problems do not exist within ones own party is the exercise of MENTAL MIDGETS.

Obama Supporters accused Bill Clinton of Race Baiting during the primaries. According to MR’s reasoning because Bill Clinton is one of the INTELLECTUAL LEADERS of the Democrats that makes the Democrats racists.

What the left fails to realize is that Barak Obama’s policies are so against everything the Republicans stand for that race is not even needed to rile the people up. Had Hillary won the election and been pushing this health care, Cap and Tax and immigration reform next year to legalize 12-20 million more democrats then you can rest assured that the same anger would be exuding from the pores of all Republicans.

Then we would be women haters and I would have to start discussing how the first senator was a Republican and blah..blah…blah.

Along that thread then doomed, we can compile a list of republican leaders who haven’t said racist things, and it’ll be shorter than your list of democratic leaders that race-bait, whether or not that is racism is not clear.

And my point is completely valid, the GOP/democrat party composition is completely different now than it was in 1870, or even 1940. So all your little quotes are irrelevant.

Just a message to Justin and to MW…… Merry Christmas…Happy New Year…. Thank you for Donklephant.

In spite of the above blog’s acrimonious banter….. your website does a damn good job of providing a place to allow people of both conservative and liberal persuasions to attempt to share their views with each other….without needing to “kill each other”…. nor having to “win” every discussion. Personally…. I have wonderful conservative friends and wonderful liberal friends. We disagree on many political issues. But they are my friends. And we talk and listen to each other. We are all in this boat (take your pick: America, the world) together…and these times call for us all to remember this.

What the left fails to realize is that Barak Obama’s policies are so against everything the Republicans stand for that race is not even needed to rile the people up.

Really? At this point, Barak Obama may be a better Republican than George W. Bush was. It’s getting harder and harder to tell. All this baloney about Obama being far left is absurd. Republicans hate him because he’s not actually a Republican, much like they hated Bill Clinton for not being a Republican, despite his policies not being terribly far from the Republican center. So I’ll grant you that race is not a necessary component (though it’s clearly there in the constituency) while differing with you regarding the nature of Obama’s policy preferences relative to those of the GOP, at least traditionally. (Lately it’s hard to tell what the GOP is for, other than tax cuts, invasions and the police state. Obama seems to be with them as far a perpetuating two of the three.)

The democratic party is what it is. Its make up has changed over the last 200 years but it still has as its history….RACISM.

Uglier and more appalling then anything the GOP has ever created. Democrats will always be known as the party that fought to keep the black people down.

Today I claim they are still pursuing policies that do the same thing. Keeping themselves relevant by perpetuating policies that are designed to keep the poor people in perpetual poverty by simply making poverty comfortable.

The GOP on the other hand was the party of Lincoln. The party that freed the slaves and worked for decades to make life better for the people of color. So far I have yet to see in any text book a (D)in front of Lincolns name.

It is what it is Chris and your attempt at rewriting history just does you no justice.

As to the philosophy of the parties.

To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” – 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to T. Roosevelt.

The parties starting with T. Roosevelt were beginning to adopt the other sides positions beginning with T. Roosevelt who could not win his parties nomination and in 1912 started his own progressive party “Bull Moose”.

Thus began a gradual transformation that took from 1910-1932 and the Election of FDR who then took many of the Ideas of the progressives and made them part of the New Deal. The democrats who had fought so hard for keeping the poor, poor now began to take on the appearance of championing the rights of the poor at the expense of their existing constituents.

Yet many, many people believe that the NEW DEAL was particularly punishing to the poor and kept them forever indebted to the government.

History is what it is.

During the following 7 decades a gradual transformation came about. Remember Strom Thruman was a democrat….but ran for president as a DIXIECRAT in 1948 because his party was not RACIST ENOUGH ANY MORE. The Democratic party.

The Republicans made the move to take on the disaffected deep south because the Democrats had made a move to take on many of their followers in Urban regions with the New Deal and the depression. A flip flop of policy and political motivations was at hand beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and culminating with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Not because they were RACISTS but for political expediency and to garner power in the arena of politics in America.

The history of the parties is what it is. Democrats were racist for over 100 years. The GOP has picked up the south for political expediency. Neither party is pure. Neither party holds a lock on sainthood and I can point to modern day Democrats who have uttered many, many racist comments.

And the policies of the Democratic party are still designed to keep the poor in perpetual poverty to keep themselves relevant because without social injustice and rigid social classes their can be no relevance for the Democratic party.

So the battles have turned from Parties. Democrat vs. Republican to a battle of idealogies. Liberal vs. Conservative. It is in this arena where the Liberals can claim their racist purity and point fingers at the conservatives as racists. With that I will agree Chris. But then that was NOT what we were talking about.

On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol’s property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

The only remaining step will be to join the world court and American Citizens can be apprehended by the world court via Interpol who is above the law and whisked off to foreign lands to stand trials.

George W. Bush will be arrested by Interpol at his home in Texas and forced to stand trial for war crimes.

Your wish will come true. Patience my friend…you just have to give Obama time to move with his Alinsky methods to prevent up in arms reactions.

Notice this was released in the dead of night and the press didnt even comment on it or its eerie implications.

How sad that you would be angry with Obama because he is still attempting to be moderate while being so far left as to make some of the best Marxists cringe.

How sad that you would be angry with Obama because he is still attempting to be moderate while being so far left as to make some of the best Marxists cringe.

Where did I say I was angry at Obama?

Your wish will come true.

What wish might that be?

As for the rest, you should probably provide a cite for your presented facts, Doomed. It sounds like anti-government conspiracy-theorist, nut-job talk to me.

The police state I was referring to rests in certain provisions of the Patriot Act, Habeus Corpus indifference and other post-9/11 paranoia-induced policies that, IMO, violate the Constitution and what I think are traditional American ideals. At least Obama’s broken off the torture apologism, but not much else AFAICT.

What the left fails to realize is that Barak Obama’s policies are so against everything the Republicans stand for…

Doomed,

Michael says the gGOP opposes Obama because he’s racist. You say no, it opposes Obama because he’s against GOP principles.

Your claim is simply false. In June everybody who supported reforming health care supported this plan. The last time the GOP seriously proposed a universal health program it proposed this plan. Ergo unless you can prove “everything Republicans stand for” has radically changed since June you are simply incorrect.

In formal debate when one guy is proven wrong the other guy winds. Congrats, you just proved that you are racist.*

*Note that I am not trying to claim Michael is right. IMO GOP stubbornness is due entirely to remarkably stupid political calculations. They’re not evil racists, they’re ambitious jerks who are willing to betray their own principles for personal gain.

I am trying to increase the quality of debate on this site by making idiots pay for mindlessly repeating stupid talking points. And I believe all non-idiots on this site will strongly agree this particular talking point is extremely stupid.

In June everybody who supported reforming health care supported this plan.

Wait. What? You claim that “this plan” existed in June?

Note that I am not trying to claim Michael is right. IMO GOP stubbornness is due entirely to remarkably stupid political calculations. They’re not evil racists, they’re ambitious jerks who are willing to betray their own principles for personal gain.

**Sigh.** I really, really, really don’t understand what the difficulty is in acknowledging that the current approach to healthcare reform is based on a series of premises that Republicans and fiscal conservatives in general by and large don’t accept as correct or useful or positive.

So, whether it makes me an idiot in Nicks eyes or not, I strongly agree with the idea that Republican opposition is closely related to economic principles that republicans have always claimed to support. Even if they haven’t always followed through very well. Is GOP opposition also based on politics? Of course. So?

I’ve said this before many times. The GOP is quite clearly not interested in helping this reform effort succeed. Whatever else you can accuse them of, you can’t rationally accuse them of betraying their declared principles.

It’s up to each and every American voter to either reward or punish Republicans for their recent performance as the opposition party to Barack Obama and the democrats. I’m fine with that. But I just can’t for the life of me understand how anyone can deny with a straight face that the mechanics of this reform are antithetical to regularly-stated and well-known conservative economic principles.

They quite clearly ARE antithetical to stated conservative economic principles. And at the risk of classing others here as idiots, I don’t see how a non-idiot could miss it.

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…

Not the specific details. But the broad outline was well-known, and if we’re discussing ideological reasons to oppose the plan the broad outline is most relevant. The only real ideological debates at the time were abortion and the public option. Since then the GOP got what it wanted on the public option (it’s dead in the Senate, which means it almost certainly won’t make it into the House bill), and substantial compromise on abortion (and probably outright victory for conservatives — they got what they wanted in the House, so they can probably get it into the final bill too).

**Sigh.** I really, really, really don’t understand what the difficulty is in acknowledging that the current approach to healthcare reform is based on a series of premises that Republicans and fiscal conservatives in general by and large don’t accept as correct or useful or positive.

The difficulty is simple: they changed their story. Like I said they have supported plans based on these principles in the past. They proposed plans based on this principles as recently as 1994. And they hated the principles of this plan so much they let Enzi help write the dang thing.

I doubt you’ll be able to show me a single Conservative principle this plan violates unambiguously. It reduces entitlement spending, makes future tax cuts easier, promotes private business, improves the small group and individual insurance markets, and makes future tax cuts much easier to pass due to reduced health spending.

Your response to me is nonsense. “Polarize a target?” Dude lay off the crack,

Second point,

If you actually read your link you’d know that Obama was restoring diplomatic privileges to InterPol. These privileges only apply to diplomats whose credentials have been accepted by the State Department, and can be revoked at any time simply be declaring the person in question a persona non grata.

This is hardly “operating unrestrained by the US Constitution.”

Are you sure your Conservative? Because your posts are really bad at defending that point of view.

The opposition to this bill is primarily monetary. It will do nothing the democrats claim it will do fiscally.

Hence the Democrats know they are going to be left holding the bag with ZERO GOP support for a bill that will most likely bankrupt America sometime in the next 15-20 years or raise taxes so high that 10 percent unemployment is the norm.

That great French health care system produces unemployment rates of between 7.5 and 10 percent yearly. All the countries that have a national health care system have very high unemployment rates because of the massive costs that require massive taxation to pay for them.

Perhaps that is why the Obama administrations told us that we should get used to high unemployment rates. Then lets make it impossible to repeal this fiasco and voilla….you have a healthcare bill that ALL REPUBLICANS SHOULD SUPPORT……

Your right it probably is a “””It sounds like anti-government conspiracy-theorist, nut-job talk to me.””””

Um, Doomed, you said a lot more than just that Obama amended a previous executive order dating back to 1983, so your evidence of the amendment of executive order by executive order doesn’t quite cover things like:

The only remaining step will be to join the world court and American Citizens can be apprehended by the world court via Interpol who is above the law and whisked off to foreign lands to stand trials.

George W. Bush will be arrested by Interpol at his home in Texas and forced to stand trial for war crimes.

Your wish will come true. Patience my friend…you just have to give Obama time to move with his Alinsky methods to prevent up in arms reactions.

You assert implications to the executive order that sound like anti-government conspiracy-theorist, nut-job talk to me regardless of the executive order being real. What reason do you have to think that these things are at all likely?

The EO allows for the Interpol agency to have the same diplomatic status as nations with embassies.

They cannot be searched. Their records and dossiers can now not be used in courts of law. They cannot be subpoena’d.

With the lefts desire to join the world court and the movement of the Detainees to Illinois one has to wonder why Obama would do something like this.

It was obviously done for a reason. He just didnt wake up one morning and decide that the USA should make the records of the Interpol agency untouchable.

Why?

After all when GWB was the president everything he did was decidely done in order to make himself dictator and to establish Martial Law in the USA.

So now its Obama’s turn. Why would he do this?

Diplomatic immunity for Interpol who has offices in our Justice Department?

Did they find some information about him (Terrorist)that could be subpoena’d. Did they find information that could be USED to seriously undermine the LEFTS positions on the upcoming trials in NYC?

There is absolutely NO reason to do this on the surface. Underneath. With the terrorist moving to Illinois and facing normal trials. With the Terrorist being tried in NYC….I rather suspect that its to keep secret things that the defence would like the American people to know.

You tell me. Why make it so interpopls records cannot be subpoena’d in a trial.

HMMMM?

Conspiracy? No But then questioning why things are done out of the blue that have the repercussions that this has is a valid question any reasonable person would have given the MSM’s total absence in questioning this president on anything he does.

I doubt you’ll be able to show me a single Conservative principle this plan violates unambiguously. It reduces entitlement spending, makes future tax cuts easier, promotes private business, improves the small group and individual insurance markets, and makes future tax cuts much easier to pass due to reduced health spending.

How utterly preposterous, Nick. The overwhelming majority of genuine legitimate conservatives (of whom I am not one, by the way) honestly believes that this reform effort is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles.

And yet, somehow the bill is NOT diametrically opposed to conservative principles because YOU say it isn’t. Whether you consider yourself a progressive or a liberal or a moderate or whatever, for what reason would any conservative accept YOUR testimony? Seriously. You have come to the sad point of no longer being able to realize when you are spinning facts. You actually believe your weak-sense critical thinking spin is objective truth, and not selective shading.

You would be very well-served to examine your method of argumentation here, this method of declaring that you understand conservative principles and how they are to be applied better than conservatives themselves do. Because it will give you some really good clues should you ever, at some point in the future, come to wonde rwhy you are so often unable to persuade a conservative or find points of agreement with one.

If you want to believe that the GOP really agreed with the broad outlines back in June, aside from the public option and abortion, you go ahead and knock yourself out. Whether this is naivete, or wishful thinking, or just an attempt to claim the moral high ground, I don’t know. Or care, really, since it’s not relevant to the question of whether this reform accords with conservative principles on spending, and government involvement in the economy and social welfare.

The fact remains that regardless of what any given congresscritter might have said at any point, the approach of this bill is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles, related to things like raising taxes, growing government, adding entitlements, perverting market incentives, and on and on. And on. [Clearly you continue to believe that this bill really will reduce entitlement spending. Conservatives do not. Neither do I. We don't think the medicare cuts will endure..]

The fact that you can spin a counter-argument that feels persuasive to you will avail you nothing with longtime conservatives who know what they stand for and what they oppose. They also recognize attempts to get cooperation that follow the lines of “if you stop squirming and struggling, I promise not to stick it all the way in.”

I think there is plenty of room to criticize the Republicans’ role and conduct during the unfolding of the healthcare reform effort. Plenty. What you really should be doing is taking notes on how a minority party can do its best to prevent reform that is diametrically opposed to their principles. You do it by extending the length of the game whenever you can, wearing out the opposition, testing their comittment, fostering divisions within the ranks of opponents, and so on.

The GOP has done this like a bunch of seasoned pros. Complain about that and I’ll agree with you. But please, for honesty’s sake, just don’t tell me this reform accords with conservative principles. You’re embarrassing yourself.

You tell me. Why make it so interpopls records cannot be subpoena’d in a trial.

Whether or not I can tell you why this was done has not bearing on the validity of your personal theories, Doomed. I’m simply open to the idea that his was done for boring reasons.

The EO is within the discretion afforded to the president under current law. If it’s such a problem, congress can explicitly carve out INTERPOL from any or all diplomatic immunity by legislation.

BTW, nice uncredited cut-and-paste from another blog. From UN Dispatch (notice the language of the quoted part):

Last week, the Obama Administration issued an executive order that extended certain diplomatic privileges to Interpol–the International Criminal Police Organization. This was a pretty innocuous bureaucratic move, but it has apparently sparked some serious concerns among a certain cadre of blogger. For example, you have Steve Shippert and Clyde Middleton of ThreatsWatch worrying that this “could conceivably include…Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.” And Andy McCarthy of National Review writes,

“This international police force…will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States…Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies?”

Both McCarthy and the ThreatsWatch duo’s understanding of how Interpol works seems to be heavily shaped by fiction and film. In real life, Interpol is also not an “international police force.” This would imply that Interpol is composed of units of officers that can chase criminals across the world, Jason Bourne style. In fact, there is no such thing as an “Interpol officer,” as such. Rather, law enforcement officers from Interpol’s member states are seconded to the organization from national law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, U.S. Marshals, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, ect.

Doomed, if you acknowledge that the racist elements of the Democratic Party fled en masse in 1964 and that Nixon in particular exploited that in his subsequent campaign then there’s no point to your posts. I’m quite familiar with this as a Republican meme btw; others may not be. It’s a close cousin with the equally risible *Hitler was a liberal* crapola. And your handful of *racist* one liners from Dems doesn’t exactly measure up to a party restructuring based on racism or a Nixonian election strategy of racist exploitation. The Democrats of today have as much to do with their roots as the Republicans do with the Party of Lincoln. Regarding race it’s clear that one party improved its position and one did not. No one here is going to fall for your absurd line of reasoning. Please proceed immediately to a Ron Paul chat room and waste their time with this dreck.

That said, I don’t find the Dems to be possessed of some stellar record on race, and accusations that they pander to minorities in order to secure votes while doing little to actually help them (similarly, Reagan catered to socons like Falwell and Roberts and then effectively ignored that constituency) seem to have some basis.

FWIW, I’ve made exactly the same arguments which mw’s quoted author do and continue to feel that way. The attribution of racist motives will continue to be a slippery slope for the duration of Obama’s tenure, and most of it is clearly an expeditious way to invalidate opposition opinion based on some extant but unmeasurable segment of said opposition which holds racist views. I’m not surprised that Mike Reynolds continues to plow this infertile terrain. It’s too bad, really.

There is little doubt that the GOP resembles the GOP of Lincoln yet the GOP is still the gop.

There is little doubt that America resembles Philadelphia circa 1776 and yet it is every bit a part of who we are.

The democrats racists roots are a part of their history. To claim otherwise continues the slippery slope of denial in vain attempts to seek cover for racist slurs against the GOP while ignoring the same racism that is rampant throughout the Democratic party.

Incidently WHQ the site you quote is not the site I quoted. They simply lifted that first bit of posting from another site. I actually got my original posting from a site called the lonely conservative.

Which does not alter the fact of ulterior and sinister motives by Obama. After all everything that Bush did had ulterior and sinister motives therefore everything that Obama does has ulterior and sinister motives.

No?

Oh thats right. Obama is a good American and Bush was Hitler. I fergot.

Yeah, I get that. They stated that it was a quote from someone else. And whether you got it from the site they quoted or not doesn’t matter. The exact wording was the same, so it was obvious that you cut and pasted it from somewhere without saying so.

Which does not alter the fact of ulterior and sinister motives by Obama.

I didn’t say it did, regardless whether those motives exist or not. The more relevant question is, what evidence do you have of ulterior or sinister motives?

Oh thats right. Obama is a good American and Bush was Hitler. I fergot.

Can you quote me comparing Bush to Hitler? It’s not the sort of thing I would do, since I take Hitler’s crimes rather seriously. I though Bush was a terrible president, but there’s really no comparing him to Hitler AT ALL. So knock it off. It’s not cool – not one bit.

BTW, I really can’t say for sure that the EO is a good idea. It may be an awful idea. But it simply applies existing law. Reagan designated INTERPOL as an international organization (which it was and is) by EO in 1983, but limited the privileges afforded to it to a subset of those allowed by law. Clinton loosened those limits some in 1995. Obama lifted those limits altogether this month. But what he didn’t to was give them any privileges beyond those that the law allows for and that all sorts of other international organizations now enjoy and have enjoyed for years. I don’t know why he did it, but I’m not making assertions about his reasons. That’s why I have nothing to prove. If you want to present reasons, prove them.

(Lately it’s hard to tell what the GOP is for, other than tax cuts, invasions and the police state.

So in essence you might have well just called him Bush. But my apologies for putting words in your mouth but as you can see after years of Bush is Hitler sentiment with police state visiages…I was almost sure that you were calling Bush Hitler.

“Polarize a target” is a nonsense phrase.
Here’s another example of you being dishonest:

Hence the Democrats know they are going to be left holding the bag with ZERO GOP support for a bill that will most likely bankrupt America sometime in the next 15-20 years or raise taxes so high that 10 percent unemployment is the norm.

That great French health care system produces unemployment rates of between 7.5 and 10 percent yearly. All the countries that have a national health care system have very high unemployment rates because of the massive costs that require massive taxation to pay for them.

Everyone knows that without reform the system will go bankrupt in the next few decades. In other words this argument is irrelevant to the health debate. Unless you have some numbers, from some trusted source, projecting that these reforms will accelerate that process it just doesn’t matter.

And the Canadians have a lower unemployment rate than we do, so you can’t claim universal health care causes unemployment very well either.

The EO allows for the Interpol agency to have the same diplomatic status as nations with embassies.

They cannot be searched. Their records and dossiers can now not be used in courts of law. They cannot be subpoena’d.

With the lefts desire to join the world court and the movement of the Detainees to Illinois one has to wonder why Obama would do something like this.

He would do it because InterPol is a legitimate international organization, and legitimate international organizations get diplomatic immunity. It’s also rather difficult to see when we’d want to raid an InterPol office. As far as I know they’ve got a desk in DC. In the Justice Department. That’s not exactly a great nucleus for an international Cocaine-smuggling ring, and if they tried Obama could rescind the Executive Order.

The Illinois move is, as expected, irrelevant to the point you’re making. It’s being done largely because there’s no reason to keep those guys in GitMo, and having them in GitMo was an effective propaganda tool for our enemies. It’s extremely stupid to give your enemies an effective tool, don’t you think?

@kk

How utterly preposterous, Nick. The overwhelming majority of genuine legitimate conservatives (of whom I am not one, by the way) honestly believes that this reform effort is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles.

The overwhelming majority of Conservatives claim it violates Conservative economic principles, and then fail to mention any actual principle. As you just did. I’m all for good faith arguments with people who provide smart reasoning, but I’ve yet to see anyone provide any reasoning for the idea that the Senate bill violates Conservative economic principles.

It seems a lot like their being ornery because being ornery is a politically effective tactic, and using unnamed “Conservative principles” to cover up their transparent political calculations.

And, as I said, even if you could provide a list of principles it violated those principles would have been violated by the Nixon plan, the Dole plan, the McCain plan of 2008, and the plan moderate Republicans were helping write back in June. Logically this means Conservative principles changed at exactly the moment it would be most politically useful for those principles to change (aka: in August), or I’m right.

So? Is this where you freeze, cut off and isloate the subject so you can demonize him, hit him from all angles to deflect the discussion away from the real point

Seriously? No, it’s just poor form and shows a lack of originality. Either way, I don’t see that I’ve avoided “the real point” at all. The cut-and-paste thing was explicitly a “BTW.” You chose to continue writing about it. I’m more than happy to drop it, if you like.

Which is WHY did Obama issue this EO?

I offered my reasoning. I did not say he committed a crime. Did anything wrong. I simply questioned the motives behind this Executive Order.

You didn’t simply question his motives. You implied specific motives through your very specific proposed questions (Terrorist) and asserted that this motives were “ulterior and sinister.” You also stated that this was a precursor to all sorts of things:

The only remaining step will be to join the world court and American Citizens can be apprehended by the world court via Interpol who is above the law and whisked off to foreign lands to stand trials.

George W. Bush will be arrested by Interpol at his home in Texas and forced to stand trial for war crimes.

Your wish will come true. Patience my friend…you just have to give Obama time to move with his Alinsky methods to prevent up in arms reactions.

As to your reasoning, it seems to be “I dislike Obama intensely and will assume the worst” as far as I can tell. You’re entitled to your opinion and your own thoughts, but that’s not a very convincing argument for me.

If you don’t know and you seem to not care…then why did you even respond to my question?

Because you asked and did so as though my ability or lack thereof to answer the question somehow affirmed your position. I’m not sure why you think I don’t seem to care. If you produced some evidence that there was a sinister motive behind this EO, I’d be upset about it. That I’m not upset over the simple fact that you are doesn’t mean that I don’t care. In fact, I’m somewhat curious to find out what this is all about, but I’m not going to put too much effort to find out because I’m reasonably sure that someone will respond to allegations such as yours in fairly short order.

Which does not alter the fact of ulterior and sinister motives by Obama. After all everything that Bush did had ulterior and sinister motives therefore everything that Obama does has ulterior and sinister motives.

This was the full quote. Notice the satire. I know…I know…satire doesnt play well on blogs. But then hey. Neither does calling the GOP believers in police states, invasions and then pretending outrage over the hint that you might be suggesting Bush is Hitler.

So be it. I have no reason to believe that you think Bush is Hitler by accepting your own admission that he is not.

On we go.

My question still stands. Why did Obama do it. The repercussions are enormous and they were done leading up to a series of trials to be embarked upon in the USA in which even the Citizens of NYC are anti Obama.

Do I hate Obama. Actually no. I think he personally is trying to be somewhat centrist while making a huge mistake of surrounding himself with idealogical czars that influence him into actions that are detrimental to a centrist approach.

but then whats that got to do with passing this EO?

I personally care why he did it. For 16 years its been perfectly fine the way it is and then suddenly we have members of the justice department who are assigned interpol duties with trials coming up and suddenly the justice department files cannot be subpoena’d?

Hmm I don’t know but it stirs up my quizzical nature and I must admit that if you go back a read your very first post addressed to me you were basically spouting far left progressive talking points about Obama to me.

I took that as you wanted to spar. Laying down the gauntlet if you will.

I agree Nic its a nonsense phrase but hey the Liberals have been using it for 40 years now.

As to being dishonest.

I buy health care insurance. The government does not buy it for me. If the government was not involved in health care then the price of health care would be immaterial to the government.

However the government now is committing themselves to pay for up to 45 million more Americans health care so suddenly the price of health care is a great big problem.

Wrong……

Health care is for the most part a private enterprise in America. So is building automobiles. The prices of Automobiles are going thru the roof yet that does not affect the national debt. Why should health care affect the national debt.

Now if the Us Government decided to subsidize vehicles for 45 million Americans to the tune of several thousand dollars per year then yes……absolutely the price of Autos would contribute greatly to our deficit.

But….Healthcare must be demonized….the American people sold a lie in order to make the people agree that there is a crisis when in fact the only crisis is that our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has spent the piggy bank dry.

So what do they do? THEY go out and agree to spend even more money they dont have and then claim that their massive spending will actually make things all better.

That reminds me of the idiot that went out and bought a motorcycle to save money because gasoline got so expensive. He still had the car payment and the insurance payment on the car….and now he had a motorcycle payment and the insurance on the motorcycle to pay…..but it did save in 14 dollars a month in gasoline.

At the expense of 200 dollars in new monthly indebtedness. Sorta like this democratic congress.

If we just insure 45 million more people and give them FREE insurance OUR DEFICITS WILL SHRINK……..

RIIIIGGGHHHHTTTTT.

If thats dishonest then what would you call the spin the Democrats are putting on this 2400 page bill from hell?

Doomed, we seem to be at the point where we’re not making arguments so much as arguing about how we’re arguing, which usually means the discussion is no longer productive. It was fun while it lasted. Happy New Year.

@Doomed: Quite simply, no. The distant history of the parties is less important than the recent history is far less important than their current positions. The trend to shelter and exploit racists to secure votes marks the current GOP far more than the 19th C. history of the Dems marks them. Like I said, no one here is falling for it.

Bottom line is this turkey of a bill has a cost benefit ratio far in excess of “1.” It will cost us FAR more than it will benefit us.

Back to square one and REAL debate of reforms. There is NO reason at all that health care reform must be done as a take-it-or-leave-it humongo-package deal that disrupts 1/6th of the economy on a purely partisan basis. None. There is EVERY reason to consider the incremental pieces of effective reform individually; their cost, their constitutionality, their likely unintended impacts, and how they actually address the problems they purport to address.

Nick, I’ll give you the honor and respect of presuming that you really do truly believe that this bill includes components and approaches which correspond favorably with conservative economic ideas. That leaves standing the problem that no actual, you know, conservatives agree with you.

The overwhelming majority of Conservatives claim it violates Conservative economic principles, and then fail to mention any actual principle. As you just did.

Hmm. Like when I said

The fact remains that regardless of what any given congresscritter might have said at any point, the approach of this bill is diametrically opposed to a variety of conservative principles, related to things like raising taxes, growing government, adding entitlements, perverting market incentives, and on and on.

You ignored that. Which makes your quote above, well, let’s say “problematic” instead of “a lie”. For civility’s sake. And please note that I listed those things in good faith, despite my full awareness that should our “discussion” continue, you’d provide some elaborate explanation for why conservatives were wrong to think this bill raises taxes, adds entitlements, and perverts market incentives. For both of our sakes, don’t bother. We clearly disagree, and no conservative would trust your ongoing spin, so just wind down, amigo. Really. It’s OK.

I don’t really care what conservatives “claim” about this bill. That’s an obsession with political gamesmanship. I’ve been consistently talking about what conservatives truly believe. I don’t consider myself a conservative, but I do my best to try to understand their points of view and discuss them in good faith.

Conservatives believe in good faith that the approach of this bill is fundamentally the wrong approach. That some or even many Republican politicians are playing fast and loose with this ideals does not dent the actual ideals. And what Bob Dole or Richard Nixon might have proposed at one point or another is neither here nor there in any discussion about what conservatives believe about economics.

The Republicans first task these days is to restore their credibility with conservatives who dislike big government programs, mandates, regulations, and so on. You’re free to see merit in big programs, regulations and so on, and you won’t even get any disagreement from me. But in the view of Republican supporters the party went astray by losing sight of its principles in favor of the principle “let’s get re-elected.” Right now, they are trying to go back to their principles and taking their medicine. That this may be a theater show on the part of some bad Republican actors doesn’t delegitimize the trend as a whole.

Nick, you’ve got an opportunity to learn something about politics that goes beyond the practice of partisan argumentation. Don’t squander it. I am afraid that if you really and truly can’t understand why components of this bill are anathema to conservatives, then it’s down the rabbit hole for you.

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